A space that allows me to pontificate on China, alternative fuel vehicles, and anything else I feel like opining about

This is a story I wrote for Wards Auto. Reposting here. The media writes about China’s NEV policy is such a shallow way. For example, I didn’t even get into it here but the whole eight percent requirement for automakers doesn’t really mean eight percent of all the cars they produce. There are “multipliers” applied to the PEVs and fuel efficient models produced that mean one BEV, for example, will count for more then one unit. Like California’s ZEV rules, however, trying to understand China’s policy would make my head explode. Also, as I note in this story exactly what the policy will be is as yet undecided.

Here is my story:

SHANGHAI — China wants electric vehicles to account for a significant portion of the vehicles sold in this country in the future, and it wants automakers to produce a growing number of those vehicles. That much is clear.

What isn’t so clear is exactly what the market wants, and what the policies related to EV production will be. That forces automakers to adopt somewhat unfocused future product plans.

Take Ford Motor Co. It plans to eventually offer electrified versions of every model produced at Changan Ford, its joint venture with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co.

Seventy percent of its models will be electrified by 2025, Trevor Worthington, vice president of product development at Ford Asia Pacific says at the Shanghai auto show.

The “vast majority” will meet the Chinese government’s definition of an electric vehicle, he says. “In order to compete in the world’s largest market, you have to be there with the right product at the right time,”

The problem can be knowing just what the right product will be. For example, “I don’t know that anyone understands the Chinese customer (battery) range demands,” Worthington says.

Just before the April show, Ford announced it would begin producing a plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Mondeo Energi, at Changan Ford in 2018. It will also bring to market within five years an all-new fully-electric SUV with a range of more than 450 miles, Ford announced.

Ford Mondeo Energi PHEV will begin production in China in 2018.

Carrot to stick

Then there is the issue of shifting government policies.

Sales of battery electric vehicles in China rose 9.7 percent in the first four months of 2017 to 72,895 vehicles. Plug-in hybrid electric sales fell 27.4 percent to 17,507 vehicles, according to the Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Hefty government subsidies underpinned much of that demand. Chinese drivers haven’t shown any real passion for electric vehicles unless accompanied by cash.

But in January, the government announced it will phase out those subsidies. They are expected to be eliminated by 2021. At the same time, Beijing still says it wants electrified vehicles to account for 20 percent of passenger vehicle production and sales in 2025.

In place of the purchase subsidies, China’s central government is planning a carbon credits program similar to California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle program.

China is switching from using a carrot to using a stick to promote electric vehicle sales, says Jason Forcier, CEO of battery maker A123 Systems,

“It is going to shift the burden (for creating demand) to the manufacturers,” he tells Wards Auto during the Shanghai auto show.

Auto makers will likely be forced to produce electric vehicles at a loss to meet the government requirements, he says.

“But you essentially go from a system where there are government subsidies to a system where OEMs cross-subsidize each other via the credits system,” he says.

All automakers face the same cost issues, says Worthington. “You have to be ready to go.”

In any case, the policy is likely to change, pretty much everyone agrees. That often occurs here.

Government mandates “are in flux,” says Worthington. “You don’t always know what is going to happen.”

Says Forcier: “It wouldn’t be shocking to me if we get to the end of this year and this policy gets updated. It happens in China a lot, and it happens rapidly.”

Indeed, exactly what form China’s ZEV mandate will take is as yet unknown. Two government offices, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, have each published their own version.

Bernstein, in a November 2016 report, calls it “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

The industry consensus now, says Zhu, is that the EV credits target will be delayed by either a significant phase-in period or lower 2018/2019 quotas.

Correction: Karma, the former Fisker, is A123’s only high-voltage customer in North America. Forcier wrote me to say that outside of North America: “We have high voltage programs with many OEMs including SGM, SAIC, Chery, GAC, Haima and several bus companies.”

It’s about time I wrote another ChinaEV blog and given my penchant for revisiting companies I have written about before, I thought battery maker A123 Systems Inc. would be a good topic. I met with A123 CEO Jason Forcier last month during Auto China in Shanghai. The battery maker has been through some big changes since we last spoke, including a bankruptcy filing. But A123 looks to be on a good path now.

Forcier says A123 is on a tear nowadays. 48V is its sweet spot.

As you likely know, A123 was in January of 2013 acquired by Wanxiang, one of the largest (if not the largest) auto components maker in China. That gave it financial security, but that is not the most valuable benefit of being owned by Wanxiang, as it turns out. Read on to learn more.

The battery maker reorganized in February of 2013, says Forcier. “The company has been on a tear since then,” he says. Its 2018 revenue will be close to $500 million, he told me, compared to less than $100 million in 2012. As you might expect given the opportunities in China, A123 is investing heavily in its China footprint, to the tune of $200-250 million a year. That is primarily to support the China market but China is also the base of A123’s battery cell production and it aims to export cells to Europe from China.

Though we hear mostly about the BEV or PHEV markets in China, which require fairly large batteries, China is the largest 48V battery market in the world, says Forcier, and half of A123’s 48V battery business globally is in China. 48V batteries are used in mild hybrids – vehicles with start-stop systems – and improve fuel efficiency quite a bit. China is mandating fuel economy of 5.0 liters per 100 K by 2020. “That will be really hard to meet without a battery on board,” says Forcier.

The market for electrified vehicles with larger batteries is primarily policy-driven in China. That has meant government purchase subsidies, but those are now expected to be phased out by 2021. Replacing subsidies will be a program resembling California’s Zero-Emission Vehicle policy, which compels automakers to produce and sell a certain number of BEVs/PHEVs. Even with that change, however, China will still remain a huge 48V market because meeting the fuel economy standards will require a mix of engine types. Of course, A123 still serves the larger battery market as well but its main (only) customer is Karma Automotive, which is also owned by Wanxiang.

Forcier has some interesting observations on Chinese automakers’ battery technology. They are investing in it, he says, but they are not on the same level as global OEs such as GM or VW. And, “BMW knows way more about batteries than Chinese OEs,” he says. It surprised me a bit that things haven’t changed that much since I started blogging about China and EVs. Sure, the local manufacturers have made great strides in electrification compared to five or six years ago. But, they are still focused on cost, says Forcier. Most aren’t making the R&D investments that the foreign automakers are in battery systems. Instead, they are sourcing entire battery systems out to suppliers, says Forcier. Same old story.

To be sure, he says, some Chinese automakers, such as SAIC, are engineering the systems themselves, and own the technology. But they are still playing catch up. “Over time, the idea is they leapfrog the rest of the industry,” says Forcier. “I am not sure I see that happening.”

Speaking of SAIC, I asked Forcier what became of A123’s joint venture with SAIC called Advanced Traction Battery Systems. “It is doing very well,” he says. “Still producing and growing.” For background of that JV see my blog of March 28, 2012. ATBS is now a captive battery supplier to SAIC.

The benefits of Chinese ownership

The SAIC JV was going to be A123’s approach to the China market, says Forcier. But, “our thinking changed.” I’m sure it did since A123 was acquired by Wanxiang. And that’s a good thing. The Chinese government in 2016 released a list of approved battery suppliers i.e. those that will receive subsidies. One criteria, it seems was that the company have significant manufacturing capacity in China. No foreign firms made the cut. A123, by virtue of being owned by a Chinese company and manufacturing in China, does qualify. “We have the best of both worlds,” says Forcier. “We are certified in China, have global technology, automotive knowhow, and a quality mindset.”

That has really paid off with General Motors, which is one of A123’s best customers, says Forcier. It also doesn’t hurt that A123 has a tech center in Michigan, where GM has a battery plant and its global headquarters. A123 also works with many other global OEs who do business in China. “We booked a lot of business in the last 18 months,” he says.

With a lot of business, Chinese certification, and a Chinese owner who is not lacking for cash, Forcier seems pretty satisfied with A123’s situation. The Chinese certification is really A123’s ace in the hole, it seems. “We get calls from our competitors all the time because they are locked out” of the China market, he says.

General Motors China has long had a knack for elbowing in to segments domestic automakers are doing well in and taking market share from the domestics. Its electrification road map, announced in late August, is the next chapter in that strategy.

Local automaker BYD is China’s top seller of electrified vehicles. Its Qin and Tang plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are selling like gang busters. That hasn’t escaped GM’s notice.

“The Qin and Tang are very viable in Shanghai,” Martin Murray, deputy director, electrification engineering at GM China tells ChinaEV. “That has given SAIC and GM the motivation to compete.”

The Qin and Tang buyers are “real people” (as opposed to ghost companies and government employees, I suppose), says Murray. But he sees a weakness. “We think those cars can be better,” he says.

GM China is out to prove that.

“We are looking at GM technology which has the safety and performance people like, and GM’s affordable models, and putting the two together in China,” he says. “The object is to make these high volumes. We are going protect these (GM) brands; these are going to be super high-quality products.”

Murray didn’t say it, but implicit in his comments is the idea that foreign automakers -or at least GM — can still produce a better car than local automakers in China. Chinese automaker’s quality and safety has improved a lot, so it is not a sure thing that GM China can produce a much more high-quality, much safer electrified vehicle than BYD.

But even an equally good, equally safe product would draw its share of buyers because the GM name in China does carry the connotation of a good, safe vehicle. And Chinese consumers often still trust foreign automakers more than local ones. So BYD better watch out.

Battery production localization – woohoo!

I think the most interesting, and indeed most crucial, part of GM China’s electrification road map is the plan to fully localize its battery pack production. It will build a new battery plant in Shanghai to accomplish this. That will help it compete with BYD on price and to produce a vehicle that consumers will still want to afford even after the government subsidies for electric vehicles run dry.

Murray says much of the current demand is driven by government subsidies, but GM figures that the subsidies will end at some point. But the need for GM to sell electric vehicles in China will not because of China’s aggressive fleet fuel economy standards. Given that, “the key point is to have affordable (electrified) cars,” says Murray.

The battery is the most expensive component in an electrified vehicle. Local production should help keep the cost down.

Murray has significant experience producing batteries, including leading battery pack engineering at GM’s battery operations in the U.S. He tells ChinaEV that GM will duplicate the entire battery production process at Brownstone Charter Township in Michigan at the planned Shanghai plant.

That means, among other things, that the plant will produce a full range of EV batteries, from power packs for hybrids to high-density energy packs for extended-range EVs such as the Volt. “We will make all the products in China that we now make in Brownstone,” says Murray.

Interestingly, he didn’t mention pure electric vehicles. And a pure electric vehicle isn’t included in the products GM mentioned in the electrification roadmap press release. The first electrified products that will be localized are the Chevrolet Malibu XL hybrid and Buick LaCrosse hybrid, and the Cadillac CT6 PHEV.

Why no pure electric vehicle, I ask Murray?

GM’s GFE electric propulsion system is scalable, he says, without really answering my question. He mentions the Springo BEV, a derivative of the Spark small car that GM China produced in limited volume. “We have plans,” says Murray a bit mysteriously.

Local production usually means local sourcing. What will GM China source locally and has GM identified the suppliers, I ask? There are 60-90 parts for each battery pack, says Murray. GM went through the list and identified parts that “made sense” to source locally, he says, mentioning sheet metal, harnesses, hoses, and the like.

Those are components that all vehicles use. What about EV-specific components such as battery cells, I ask? GM purchases cells from partners, he says, and “we are going to make packs here in China with cells from our friends.”

Some friends are more equal than others, it seems. LG is GM’s partner at its battery plant in Michigan. “But not necessarily in China,” says Murray.

GM’s long-time partner in China, SAIC, has a joint venture with A123, Shanghai Advanced Traction Battery Systems Co that produces battery cells in China. Will GM be sourcing form ATBS, I ask? “We do stay in close touch with SAIC, says Murray. “They have a lot of interesting ideas.” Sounds a bit like a no to me.

The planned battery plant in Shanghai is, in any case, a joint venture with SAIC (or perhaps with Shanghai GM, the press release is a bit unclear and I forgot to clarify). GM has licensed “all the necessary” intellectual property to SAIC GM, says Murray. The battery plant project is being driven by the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, a 50/50 GM/SAIC research and engineering center in Shanghai.

“Our goal at PATAC is to leverage ideas in China, (and) leverage good ideas from local suppliers,” says Murray.

Finally, I asked Murray if GM China would be producing China-specific electrified vehicles. His reply leads me to believe GM is taking the Chinese approach to planning, i.e. “crossing the river by feeling for the stones.” Which is a good idea as that is the way China’s central government is making its NEV policy, so best to be flexible.

GM will have some products that are specific to China, but have common solutions under the hood, he says. More details will come out over the next four to five years, he says.

“We are going to set the industry trend for driving experience,” says Murray. “We are here for the long run.”

I recently had a conversation with Rebecca Hough, CEO of Evatran, the maker of the Plugless Power wireless charging system for electric vehicles. Seems her company is making inroads in China, sort of. I still await the Chinese government’s commitment to building a wireless EV charging infrastructure, however.

The relationship between VIE and Evatran continues to grow; the next tranche of investment from VIE just occurred. I thought it was a good time to check back with Hough about the JV and her overall take on China’s electric vehicle market.

The most recent investment of $2.3 million occurred in July, and it was the final tranche of the $5.5 million initial investment by VIE in the U.S. Evatran entity. The two earlier tranches, or $1.6 million each, occurred in mid- and late-2015.

Additionally, Evatran and VIE will invest $5 million in the China-based, Hong Kong-registered joint venture. Evatran’s portion will consist of a limited amount of capital plus assignment of intellectual property, as well as technical and engineering support, Hough tells me. Evatran will have a 25 percent ownership stake in the JV.

The target customers for the wireless charging system – known as Plugless Power, in the U.S. – are Chinese automakers, many of whom are already VIE customers, says Hough, Hough indicated the target product was passenger cars, and based on VIE’s website, it seems to supply all the major domestic OEs as well as SGMW.

Rather than sell Plugless Power as an aftermarket product, Evatran and VIE hope to become suppliers to the auto makers themselves. That requires automakers to have plans to produce electric vehicles with wireless charging technology installed. So I guess part of the plan it to use the VIE connection to convince automakers to begin producing electric vehicles that can be charged wirelessly.

As with most things China, there is an issue. China doesn’t yet have a national wireless charging standard. SAE in the U.S. is currently evaluating the J2954 wireless charging standard for light duty plug in/electric vehicles. It is expected to be standardized “after the 2016 timeframe.” But China doesn’t want to use that standard. As Hough pointed out, “China often has its own standard, but close.” Meaning rather than just adopt the same standard as the U.S., China wants its own. Sigh.

Hough figures the lack of a standard in China isn’t a problem. She says that China will likely be similar to the U.S. in that after automakers begin to produce electric vehicles that use wireless charging, a standard will follow.

“In China, we have an opportunity to use what we learned in the U.S.,” says Hough. “We go to the OEMS, says ‘we can put this in the field without having a standard, then develop a standard.”

It could be three to five years before a standard is developed and rolled out in China, she says.

Is the China market ready for wireless charging? Yes, says Hough. And I do hear from my industry contacts there is a lot of interest in wireless aka inductive charging. But as I said at the top, I await a sign from Beijing.

It is uncertain if Chinese consumers actually feel any enthusiasm for electric vehicles of any kind, of course. They do like the hefty government subsidy that comes with the purchase, however. One thing is clear – Beijing isn’t backing down on its plan to make China a big market for electrified vehicles.

That is why Evatran is working with VIE, says Hough. Evatran figures it can’t be a global player if it doesn’t have a presence in China, she says.

As it has developed relationships with manufacturers over the last year, “the real eye-opener is looking at the work done by the companies themselves (on EV development). You get pretty bullish about what the company can do and the market not just in China but globally.”

For the next six months Evatran will work with VIE on getting the JV up and running. The VIE can handle manufacturing the actual charging pad. Evatran’s expertise will be vital to adapting its standard Plugless Power charging system to the Chinese vehicles.

The JV aims to start manufacturing by the end of 2017. It should have a customer lined up by then, says Hough. “We have a front runner,” she says.

The Evatran/VIE venture is focused on passenger vehicles. Meanwhile, other Chinese entities are going after the bus market. Chinese telecom equipment company ZTE last year said it was developing wireless charging for buses, and focused on public infrastructure. So it must smell government support. I haven’t seen or heard much about it lately, though.

Wireless charging is a great idea for China. Most people don’t have a drive way, much less garage. But the government hasn’t even made good on its plan to install a lot of regular charging posts yet. So I’m skeptical that it will rush to install wireless charging pads. Perhaps the automakers themselves will do this. Someone will have to.

China is still struggling with how to implement a Zero Emission Vehicle-like credit program. Concurrently, it is working on a new fuel economy CAFÉ-type regulation, and aims to implement an industrial carbon credits program. As usual, China won’t simply borrow California’s ZEV program, or copy someone else’s carbon credit program. The ministries in Beijing want to come up with their own, one with Chinese characteristics. And that could be a problem.
Back in November of 2014 I blogged about how China was interested in putting together a program similar to California’s Zero Emission Vehicle program, or ZEV. The program requires automakers to sell a certain number of zero emission vehicles in the state, a number determined by the total volume of vehicles that automaker sells in California, where I live.
I wrote about China’s ZEV plans again in November of 2015. At that time, An Feng, co-founder of the non-profit Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (iCET) told me ICET wants to establish four pilot cities in China to try out the ZEV program, An told me back then — Beijing, Shenzhen, Chongqing, and Shanghai. The caveat, he said, would be enforcement. “California has worked because it has a very high penalty,” said An “In China, who has the authority to introduce the penalty and manage it?”
That is still a good question. A number of ministries in China have their toe in the transportation/energy policy pond. That has slowed implementation of any ZEV-type programs. As well, ZEV programs, with their multiple levels of credits for various types of low- or zero-emission vehicles – are complicated enough (just try reading the details of California’s ZEV credits regulation without having your eyes glaze over), but China wants to make such a program even more complex. It wants to combine an automotive carbon credits program i.e. a ZEV-type program with an industrial carbon credits program. A two-track carbon credits program under one umbrella, as it were.
Meanwhile, a new corporate average fuel consumption program (China’s version of CAFÉ) is being created. And this is where it gets tricky. The Ministry of Industry and Technology (MIIT) is working on the CAFC standards. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is working on implementing the carbon credits program.
“There is a consensus now that some form of mandate will be adopted,” said one of my sources. And there is an agreement between MIIT and NDRC that the policy should be a national one to avoid local protectionism, he says. But, MIIT wants the CAFC regulations and ZEV/carbon credits program to be part of the same policy. This is very problematic, says the source.

BYD and Daimler have combined to produce an EV

“A ZEV mandate is futuristic. If the future is a cliff, you can pay someone to jump off the cliff for you,” he says. “CAFÉ is like high school graduation; you either make a passing grade or you fail. With ZEV you can buy your way out, CAFÉ is not tradeable.”
What is the danger if China combines the two? Well, the CAFC details haven’t been worked out as to how many credits each kind of alternative fuel vehicle will be worth. And, each automaker will almost certainly have to produce a certain number of EVs to meet CARC, but Beijing is considering also requiring them to produce some EVs to meet the carbon credits requirement.
The source posits a hypothetical situation that shows how problematic combining the two policy goals may be: A local automaker that produces mainly SUVs has several possible strategies. It could innovate with its ICE vehicles, using lightweight materials and the like, to improve the vehicles’ fuel economy. Or it could produce a lot of hybrids. Or the automaker could go all-in on EVs, founding its own EV manufacturing company which produces “some garbage EVs” which the automaker then sells to its own leasing company, thus meeting the quota. None achieve the government’s goal of making China a production center for high-quality EVs.
Another possible outcome: The EV quota is set very high. The automaker can’t meet the quota for the stringent standards. That forces the automaker to either produce trash EVs or cheat and bribe its way into compliance. “How do you know in a mixed system what is the proper level of EV requirements for the quota?” he says.
The debate continues regarding a combining CAFC and ZEV/carbon credits under one policy. I guess the good news is that MIIT and NDRC have agreed that any policy needs to be nationwide to avoid local protectionism. The bad news is it could be a bad policy.

So let me say right up front that I wrote a pretty mean blog in December of 2013 about Kai Johan Jiang, the Chinese-Swedish founder of National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB, or NEVS. Not about him personally. But about his purchase of Saab. I mean, Saab isn’t that sexy a brand and NEVS was making some pretty bold claims back then. NEVS is still making some bold claims. But I’m ready to eat crow if I turn out to be wrong. So I’m taking a second look at NEVS.

This second look was prompted after a friend of mine visited NEVS in Tianjin and had some positive things to say about the Chinese-Swedish company. The most positive thing he reported, admittedly, is that NEVS seems to have excellent connections with China’s central government and also a steady stream of funding via private investment and also incentives from the Tianjin Binhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Area (THT), which is building a new factory for NEVS and has given them the land for free, he said.

My friend was also very impressed with Kai Johan Jiang, who made a fortune from biomass. Jiang founded a company in China that uses Swedish technology to produce electricity using biomass. The company, called (apparently, I am still trying to envision the org chart for Jiang’s companies) National Bioenergy Group, has no trouble selling every kilowatt hour it is generating to China’s State Grid, said my friend. “It appears (Jiang) has extremely good connections with the State Grid,” said my friend.

But, said my friend, Jiang sold that business three years ago and used the proceeds to buy Saab. On his LinkedIn page, Jiang is listed as Chairman of State Holdings. State Holdings is based in Beijing. And his company, National Modern Energy Holdings (NME), is described as the main owner of NEVS on the NEVS website. NME also owns State Holdings. Got that?

Jiang’s good relations with State Grid paid off in March of this year. NEVS signed a contract to provide “mobility solutions” and supply electric vehicles to the State Grid. That is a sweet contract. In fact, NEVS has been on an acquisition trail ever since it was founded in April of 2012. It acquired the main assets of Saab in August of that year. You can see the rest of its acquisitions on its timeline. Clearly NEVS has funding.

Headquartered in Sweden, NEVS has production facilities in Sweden, invested in a production facility in Fujian, and is building one in Tianjin. It plans to use the Saab 9-3 platform to produce several pure electric vehicles, and is developing a platform of its own for another lineup of EVs.

Let me digress a bit. I must say that NEVS has been a pleasure to deal with. For one, its website is lovely. Nice looking, and more importantly full of useful information. And its public relations people are actually helpful! Though I didn’t get the interview I requested, they did answer my questions in a timely manner. So that also makes me think well of NEVS.

So, back to its production plans. It will launch the 9-3 EV sedan, using the Saab platform, in China in 2017. NEVS plans to start to produce painted bodies in Sweden then ship them to China for final assembly. It will also manufacture a limited number of 9-3 EV sedans in Sweden for sale there.

Meanwhile, NEVS is developing its own Phoenix architecture, a scalable and modular platform that “makes it possible to manufacture cars from the B to the E segment,” said NEVS director of communications and public affairs Mikael Oestlund (there is an umlaut on the O but I can’t reproduce it. So one puts an e, right?) In an email.

In 2019 or 2020 NEVS plans to launch a lineup of EVs based on the Phoenix architecture. It will include: Distinctive Family SUV, D segment; Active All-rounder D segment fastback; Urban Adventurer D fastback x (I am reproducing what NEVS sent me. Not sure what x stands for); Sporty Urban SUV, C segment SUV. He sent some sketches, which are not of actual models, he said, rather they are examples of the types of vehicles NEVS plans to develop.

Quite ambitious. And they will be entering an already crowded SUV segment in China. I asked the spokesman why NEVS thought it would be successful in China. He replied: “We think we can deliver a high quality EV product, based on the innovative Swedish Saab car heritage. We have already interesting framework agreements for fleet sales in China.”

By framework agreement I assume he is referring to the $12 billion agreement with Panda New Energy Vehicle to deliver an initial 150,000 EVs, and later an additional 100,000 EV “products and services.” Those deliveries will begin in 2017, said Oestlund, beginning with the 9-3 EV sedan, and also transport and logistics vans. The vans will be produced at the plant in Fujian.

The deal with Panda was announced in December of 2015. I am skeptical. Panda is a new energy vehicle leasing company “cooperating with many chauffeured car service platforms in China.” I think it must have ties to large SOEs or local governments that are going to be required to include new energy vehicles in their fleets going forward. So a captive market of sorts. Nonetheless, I am skeptical.

I asked Oestlund if NEVS was confident the agreement would be executed. “We have a framework agreement that we are planning for to be able to deliver upon,” he wrote in his reply. Good luck.

In any case, because NEVS is a very professional company that, as mentioned, seems to have excellent connections in China, it may have a chance. I will reserve judgement and follow its progress with interest.

One thing was the same at Auto China this year – I was a bit dazed by the end. Part of it is the sheer size, but a larger factor is that I generally have flown in from California one or two days before nowadays and am super jet-lagged.
This year’s show was in Beijing. I used to dislike the Beijing venue intensely. The Shanghai venue, out in Pudong, was easier to navigate and in general more pleasant. Sadly, I now favor Beijing over Shanghai. The new Shanghai venue out in Hongqiao is horrid. I spent about 20% of my time there lost last year. But I rant.
The mood was good at the Beijing show despite all the doom and gloom in the U.S. media about how China’s economic growth is slowing and along with that growth in the auto market. As Lars Danielson, SVP of Asia Pacific for Volvo said to me, the China market is expected to grow five to seven percent this year and “you don’t find that” in developed markets.
Electric vehicles were everywhere, natch. Interestingly, EVs (including PHEVs and BEVs) seemed to be a bit more prevalent than at the Shanghai show last year. But, as my friend and former colleague Yang Jian pointed out in his column in Automotive News China, hybrids were the real story. Hybrids don’t receive subsidies in China, but automakers have to produce them in order to meet China’s fuel economy requirements. But I am not writing about hybrids.
Before the show, my friend Frank O’Brien at Magna had told me the two automakers that seemed the most serious about actually producing EVs were BYD and BAIC. BYD is a given. EVs are its ace in the hole. And it had plenty of electrified vehicles on show at its booth, a mix of PHEVs and BEVs.

The latest generation of the BYD Qin

BAIC is a bit more interesting.

BAIC had a fairy large EV technology exhibit.

It is selling a lot of EVs – and in BAIC’s case I mean BEVs.
BAIC has gone all-in for BEVs. That is likely because its owner, the Beijing Municipal Government, is pushing it to do so, and rewarding it for doing so. The incentives are higher for BEVs. Importantly, the technology underlying BEVs is also easier for a domestic OE to produce. PHEVs require that tricky integration of the electric and non-electric drivetrains.
I figure Beijing Municipality having a lot of EVs is a good thing. If the capitol of China isn’t committed to electrification, why should the rest of China care about it?

BMW i3’s available to rent .

Li Feng, president of BAIC, told me that BAIC would sell 70,000 EVs this year, up from 20,000 last year. That’s a big jump but Li “comes from marketing, so he is always thinking about the marketing angle,” one of his underlings on the sidelines told me. (Li said this to me personally. I talked to him while wandering around the show floor. He was doing an interview and I snagged him afterwards….).
The thing is, there really are a lot of BEVs driving around Beijing. Many, many BAIC E150 BEVs, a cheap little basic EV. But my friend Rob Earley, who lives in Beijing and is COO of MotionECO, a company turning waste cooking oil into biodiesel, tells me there is a Tesla in his complex, and that poorer folks with lesser EVs run extension cords down from high floors to charge their EVs. And I did notice some other EVs,
Of course, Beijing has a lot of sticks and carrots to encourage EV ownership. I wrote about these in an earlier blog – perhaps my last one, I’ve gotten so lazy. Owners of EVs can drive any day on BJ’s clogged freeways, which might not seem like a reward but regular old ICE vehicle owners are restricted according to license plate numbers. BEV buyers also receive nice subsidies towards the purchase.
China won’t reach its rather large New Energy Vehicle (including PHEVs and BEVs) sales target with subsidies alone. But they are necessary to give the segment a boost in the beginning. Or, as Lorraine Yan, CEO of Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology Co. Ltd, the manufacturer of the Denza brand of EVs, said at Denza’s presser, though the EV sector can’t depend on government policy alone, or forever, the segment is like a toddler and the incentives are helping it learn to walk.

Denza, a JV between BYD and Daimler, is still alive.

If there was a theme at the show, beyond EVs, SUVs and luxury cars (both separately and as one segment i.e. luxury SUVs) it would have been car-sharing, or ride-sharing. I heard those words from numerous automakers, including LeEco/LeSEE, Denza, and BAIC. Well, to be honest I didn’t actually attend the BAIC presser so didn’t hear an executive utter those words. But I personally experience BAIC’s car sharing experiment.
My friend Rob and I rented a BAIC E150 for a few hours the day before the show.BAIC works with a company named YiDuYongChe. Rob has an app that looks a lot like the one used to track your Uber driver on his phone. It tells him where pickup sites for Yidu EVs are located and how many units are available at that site. We found a site near my hotel and Rob reserved the one BAIC E150 remaining.
We descended into the parking garage at a high-rise commercial building and found the EV. Rob used the app to unlock the car and we took off. We decided to drive out to the suburbs to see a battery swapping station that is about to open in the Beijing suburbs.
The station was built by Beijing Dianba New Energy Technology Co. Ltd. with the backing of a taxi company and BAIC. Guys from Dianba were replacing the floor in the battery swap bay when we were there.

A new floor was being installed in the battery swapping building.

We tried to recharge our EV at one of the stations on the site, but they didn’t work.

The charging stations were not quite ready for prime time.

A fruitless charging attempt.

Good thing we tried them out because the guys there couldn’t get them to work. That would have been embarrassing had it happened on the official launch day which was two days after we visited. Still, it was impressive. And looking online, Dianba seems to have applied for many patents. Now if Beijing, and China, can multiple at least the charging stations 100,000 times.